Spurred by the upcoming (now arrived) film adaptation, I recently
downloaded and read The Watchmen, the iconic, award-winning twelve-issue comic book series from the late 80s. It was, much to my surprise, exceptionally well done.
I've never been
much of a fan of comics, and haven't read any of them regularly since I was in about fifth grade. As an adult the comics I've tried have been afflicted by rather underwhelming stories, and I don't care enough about the visuals (even when they were good) to get by on those alone. Most comics seem to have very threadbare, inconsequential or incoherent stories, stuff that would never stand in written form. It doesn't have to, since comics are a primarily visual medium, but too often the stories are sub-TV quality, and seem to exist primarily to showcase various "cool" scenes the author thought up, or cool images the artist wanted to illustrate. They're like porn or bad action movies in that way; existing solely for a few big bang scenes, with all the interstitial material just filler and the overall story largely irrelevant.
That's generally a feature, not a bug, as evidenced by the countless "Hero X vs. Hero Y" type titles. Most comics of that type are basically pro wrestling; there's some hype to build it up, some flimsy storyline to hang it from, but the fans and principles know that stuff's all bullshit to fill out the hour/issue. The whole point is just to get to the showdown.
For example, just today I skimmed through a short series of comics that presented horror movie characters Jason vs. Freddy vs. Ash. (You can find the download link elsewhere in the thread I linked to for the Watchmen download.) It bored me and was pointless, but it certainly did what it promised. Jason stomped around machete-killing teens in semi-amusing circumstances, Freddy haunted dreams and tried to break over into the real world, and Ash tried to find the Necronomicon-lite book to stop the both of them. The entire plot of the 4 (or 6?) issue series would take about a sentence to lay out. In fact, I did just lay it out in a single sentence. There are other characters of course, but they're just props. Dumb horny college kids for Jason to chop up, dumb useless cops to harass Ash, one vaguely competent hot female to motivate Ash and serve as a love interest, etc. Whoever wrote the series probably needed half an hour to lay it out, with 25 minutes of that spent storyboarding it out so the "plot" would fit into the big illustration boxes.
I'm not saying this to criticize, since as I said earlier, it's a feature, not a bug. The comic was exactly what it portrayed itself as, and (I suppose) was exactly what the fans wanted. (From what I can find online, it was
very well received. I must admit to spitting water at the
Amazon.com page listing
two authors. Two? The story was absolutely, 100%, cut and paste, every horror movie cliche ever. Crediting two authors for this is like crediting two draftsman on a tic-tac-toe board.)
I found the mini-series boring and pointless, and while the art was pretty good, illustrations aren't enough to entice me to read comics that have no interesting plot/dialogue/characters/etc. Bad illustrations are, of course, worse than good ones; I recently read the original
V for Vendetta series, and while it was overlong and less enjoyable than the film version of the story, the low quality artwork didn't help either. (I'd never have read the whole 12 issues if not motivated primarily to see how it differed from the movie, which I like quite a bit.) Bland drab dull colors, grainy image quality, poorly-differentiated faces, and it wasn't just due to a poor quality online scan; I had the same reaction when I flipped through the updated graphic novel version I saw in bookstores around the time of the movie's release.
Returning to Watchmen, I'll write an actual review of it at some point, since it was that good. It's the only comic I've ever read that I thought highly enough of to recommend to others, and that's despite the fact that I thought the artwork was largely blah. What I liked was the story, which was akin to a novel, rather than the sparse, action-heavy fare that most comics are. Better yet, it was a really good story, told in highly inventive fashion. The pages are very dense; most are 3x3, with lots of dialogue, narrative, character thoughts, etc in each. I read most 24 page comics in about 5 minutes, since there's so little to absorb or hold my interest. I probably spent 20-30 minutes per episode of Watchmen, and routinely reread pages or sections to figure exactly what was happening.
There are lots of major characters, they're all very unique and individual and full of personality, rather than just being superhero cliches. There are a lot of plot threads overlapping and interweaving, and there are great literary metaphors and stories within the story. The whole antique pirate comic book that a kid is reading in the story, with a plot that eerily echoes and works as a metaphor to the main Watchmen story, is just brilliant. As are all of the addendum materials; book excerpts, diary segments, critical commentary, all of it written within the fiction world and adding depth to the world. Plus the overall story is excellent, even on top of the brilliant techniques used to relate it. I'll definitely read the whole series again some day, and not just because it's got clever twists and reversals at the end that make me want to read it all again to look for clues and foreshadowing.
As for the Watchmen movie, I've not seen it, and don't know if I will. Reviews are
middling and
mixed, and the better written ones, whether positive or negative, make it sound unnecessary. The movie is slavishly loyal to the comic, preserving all of the characters, much of the dialogue, all of the non-chronological, flashback-filled presentation, etc. Sadly (but predictably), the film jettisons all of the literary metaphors, stories within the story, added reference materials, etc. That was probably necessary; the movie is overlong already with a huge, complicated story and tons of characters, but it's the bonus materials, the literary touches and metaphors and such, that really made the comic work for me. And since none of that's in the movie, and what remains is just a film version of the comic, with the violence and sex amped up, I don't really see the point? (Admittedly, I don't see how the literary stuff would have been filmable, so I'd probably have made the same choice if I were the writer/director.)
The film seems to skew very male, which is no surprise. But it also skews older, which is unusual for a comic property.
Ebert loved the movie knowing nothing about the comic.
PZ loved the movie as a big fan of the comic. Malaya hated and was bored by the movie, knowing nothing about the comic. (I sent her the link to DL it and recommended it highly, but she's not into reading on her computer so she didn't get to it before seeing the movie in Imax on opening weekend.) She thought
this review summed up exactly what was wrong with the film. In brief: The humanized super heroes concept was a revelation 20 years ago, but it's been done to death by now. The world setting and plot worked in the early 80s, but it's dated and antique post-Cold War/USSR. Missing the addendum literary elements the plot is weak. And the acting sucks since they cast it based on physical resemblance to the comic characters rather than acting talent, and the music is heavy-handed and distractingly awful.
I've got one other point of evidence. I recently read the
Batman: Year One 4-issue series, that they based the plot/theme/mood of the 2 recent Batman movies on, and it (the inspiring comic) was okay. Better than the comic version of
Vendetta, but not very well illustrated and burdened by weak colors and a general lack of visual style or panache. More importantly, to my priorities, the plot wasn't very good. Like the comic Vendetta, I read it mostly to see how the movie differed from the comic that had inspired it. And like Vendetta, the Batman comic set the tone and mood and theme very nicely, but failed on most of the details. Too much plot in the comic, in both instances. To my surprise.
So, here's my grand unified theory of comic book > to > movie quality. The movies are better when they don't have to try to adhere to an actual storyline. Most film adaptations of novels are usually pretty lame, since the movie tries to cram the whole 400 page book into an 120 page screenplay. This necessarily entails removing most of the subplots and character depth and other elements that make the novel work. Watchmen seemed to suffer this fate, at least in the eyes of most of the critics who liked the comic but not the movie.
On the other hand, the good recent comic movies have been reinventions of the characters or world. They've jettisoned most of the comic mythology and complicated background and world fiction, and stripped the story down to the main character, their origin, and one of their classic villains. They've gone serious; no bat-a-rangs or Robin in his comical, colorful, bird-themed outfit. And they've focused on realistic (relatively speaking) origin explanations. They show how the heroes come to be, what their motivations are, how they get their gear and secret hideouts, who their friends are, etc. It's still a superhero movie, but it's basically grounded in reality. I'm talking about Batman, but Iron Man did much the same, and I'll even throw in the 2 recent James Bond movies, which had a very similar aesthetic as they grittily relaunched the often overly-ornate secret agent.
It doesn't always work that way, of course. Arguably Elektra and Catwoman did the same thing, or at least tried to, and those were both disasters. I'm not sure where X-men falls on that scale; I spent the whole movie wondering who built Xavier's plane and the other gadgets, but the characters (at least the good guys) were largely real people, while the stories are fairly ridiculous and most of the bad guys (mutants or government agents) were just cartoon props set up for the heroes to knock down. I wasn't much of a fan of the Spider-Man movies, and never saw the 3rd one, but they were hugely popular, and went fairly realistic on the characters and settings. I can't comment on the recent Superman or Hulk movies since I didn't see them, but they weren't very popular or critically acclaimed.
Anyway, ignoring the facts that are inconvenient for my argument, here's my thesis. Comic book movies are better when they just take the archetypal themes and write a whole new, movie-friendly story. Ideally a classic story taken from the comic, but one that the screenwriters don't treat as a holy icon they dare now depart from. That's what Batman did, as did Iron Man. Watchmen did entirely the opposite, and only the fact that it's such a good comic kept the movie at all tolerable?
Batman Year One is a great illustration (so to speak), since the comic does a fine job of establishing the mood and theme and setting of crumbling, crime-ruined Gotham. The movie adapts that exactly. The comic also establishes Bruce Wayne's character; young, somber, recently returned to his old home, idealistic about saving the city but realistic about the difficulty. Detective Gordon's character is well-established as well, and he essentially co-stars in the comic, with much ink spent on his life, his "one honest cop" personality, the vulnerability of his wife and family, and his potential to lead a comeback for the good cops, if Batman can start the pendulum swinging back towards right and justice.
On the other hand, the plot of the
Batman Year One comic series is a mess. They've got a lot of plot, it's just misguided. There's a long subplot about Gordon almost falling in love with his super hottie blonde co-detective (before she conveniently and painlessly transfers out of the city), there's much fighting between Gordon and this giant Aryan corrupt cop, there's way too much of Gordon worrying about the world he'll soon be raising his (unborn) son in. There's no real villain; just a lot of bad guy crooks and cops and others. There's a distracting and irrelevant, half-hearted sub-plot about an angry, Amazonian, black, gymnast, whore, Catwoman. And so on.
The comic is more notable for what's missing, compared to what was in the movie. The comic provides zero info about how Bruce Wayne got his training or skills, where he gets his (stripped down) equipment, what he's done since his childhood in Gotham, why he's so devoted to saving the city, etc. So the whole childhood fear of bats, the restless ennui-filled youth, the Tibetian prison, the ninja training, the secret organization he's recruited to, etc... all movie invention. Back in Gotham, his love interest is entirely added in the movie. Nothing about the childhood friend who becomes the assistant D.A. The movie villain(s) are not in the comic; there's no Sandman, nothing about the Arkham Asylum nor the secret brotherhood coming to destroy Gotham, Wayne Manor is not destroyed, all the inventions and gizmos from Wayne Enterprises are movie inventions, the subplot of Bruce regaining control of Wayne Enterprises... all that was invented for the film (some of it came from earlier Batman comics, but none was in the Year One series).
And that's the point. Find good character ideas and established archetypes in the comics, take a few plot elements that translate well to cinema, give it a realistic, gritty patina, and do everything else from scratch. That works better (providing the people doing it are talented writers) than trying to adapt any particular story to a screenplay, or hewing too closely to the original comics, most of which originated in the 40s or 50s and have a terribly dated, goodie-goodie, archaic vibe to them. (I recently read the first 3 issues of X-men and they're laughably cheesy. Incredibly dated. Literally LOL painful in the characterizations, action, plotting, etc. Thematically akin to the campy 60s Batman TV show, with the "POW" and "BLAM" visual pop up graphics.)
That said, I shall now await rebuttals from more comic-knowledgeable readers, in the form of in the form of counter-examples by that disprove all or most of my points. And a girlfriend who liked action/comic/horror movies wouldn't hurt either; I've not seen any new films since well into last year, lacking anyone to provide me with the motivation to go out/not wait for the DVD.
Labels: batman, comics, movies
